Henze - Das Floß der Medusa (Amsterdam, 2018)

Romeo Castellucci's productions seem to be well-suited to the drawing out the
allegorical aspects out of works that have a level of musical and
thematic abstraction that can be adapted to address current affairs and
contemporary subjects of interest, albeit often somewhat obliquely.
Hence we've seen Castellucci bring his unique individual touch to
Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Bach's St Matthew's Passion, to Wagner's
Tannhäuser and Parsifal, but also managed to approach and make real
mythological themes in Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. In all those works
there is also a very marked struggle between two different and almost
diametrically opposed forces, between life and death, the physical and
the spiritual, the word and the deed.There's another
world very much concerned with strong divisions, in the space between
life and death, but also with a political undercurrent suggested but
never made explicit in Hans Werner Henze's Das Floß der Medusa (The Raft
of the Medusa). Again, the work is not a conventional work; an
oratorio rather than an opera, and again Castellucci strives not only to
find ways to illustrate the nature of the opposing forces at play and
the relationship between them, but find a modern allegorical way
to illustrate and give them a relatable contemporary relevance, and also
in some way that is difficult to define, turn the focus back on the
either self-reflexively on the theatrical nature of opera or even back
onto the audience.

The opposing forces in Henze's work
appear to be easily identifiable but in reality also hold complex layers
which are related to the time it was created in 1968. On a surface
level, Das Floß der Medusa is very obviously inspired by and named after
Théodore Géricault famous painting "Le Radeau de la Méduse", painted
not long after the notorious naval incident it depicts. In 1816, the
French naval frigate the Medusa was shipwrecked not far from its
destination, but still 108 miles off the coast of Senegal. The
governor, the captain and the ships officers took to the available
lifeboats, leaving 154 crew to put together a makeshift raft that was
initially towed, but then cut off and left to the mercy of the currents.
When the raft was picked up 13 days later, only 15 people survived on
the raft.There's a clear commentary on the class
divisions between those privileged to be saved and those left to fend
for themselves in what turned out to be a horrendous journey, subjected
to deprivation, starvation, dehydration and cannibalism that caused an
enormous scandal. Théodore Géricault's painting, created in 1819,
depicting the moment that the survivors first spy and attempt to attract
the attention of the dot of a ship on the horizon, is painted like a
glorious memorial to those who suffered, defiantly provocative and
unflinching of the reality of what was endured by those on the raft of
the Medusa, and of a corrupt regime that allows such inequalities to
persist.Similar political and social implications can be
found in Henze's oratorio, written in 1968 in another period of social
and political activism to which Henze was very much connected. Das Floß
der Medusa however doesn't make any overt reference to then
contemporary issues, depicting the journey and fate of those aboard the
raft of the Medusa strictly in historical terms. The nature of the
struggle between two vast forces is very much evident in the make-up of
the roles of the oratorio. Only one person is identified, Jean-Charles,
the mulatto at the head of the raft who is seen waving a red shirt at
the approaching rescue ship, the other two solo roles being Death and
Charon who acts as narrator and as a guide to lead the chorus on board
the raft from the side of the living to the dead.

Fairly
stark divisions then that draw the lines between the living and the
dead, between the privileged and the poor, but also the struggle that
each individual on the raft has to make, the "perspective of an end that
is separated only by courage or cowardice", which is how I think it is
described. Romeo Castellucci's innovative approach, using projection screens,
text and symbols, contributes a few other levels that bring out the
underlying political subtext of the work and place it in a modern day
context where the message is not overt, but hard to miss all the same.
Like his Orphée et Eurydice - and indeed his production of Moses und Aron - there's a large screen that places a barrier that highlights the
division between the message and the work, between the audience and the
performers.

Playing out in parallel to the story of the Raft of the Medusa, Castellucci projects a film made in present-day
Senegal, where a Muslim man, Mamadon Ndaye, is brought out to the exact
point where the Medusa was shipwrecked and left in the sea for four
days. Without having to make it explicit, there is evidently a
commentary to be made about the inequality between the prosperous
nations of the west and the poorer nations suffering disease, poverty,
war and torture, having to take to attempt to migrate and seek asylum on
flimsy boats on dangerous seas. It doesn't even have to be explicit,
the footage of a man alone out in the middle of an immense sea is
powerful enough, particularly when it is projected on top of the story of
what happened to the crew of the Medusa some 200 years previously.

But
of course, nothing is that simple with Castellucci. You might wonder
why Death wears a yellow waterproof jacket and why she operates a movie
camera that is trains on the audience (projecting back an empty theatre
towards the conclusion). Self referential elements, breaking down the
barrier between reality and theatre, also appear in the form of the
actual names of the chorus - seen bobbing in the background behind the
sea, sometimes as dummies - being projected on the screen, with their
date of birth and the date of their 'death' being the 23 March 2018 (the
date of the recording of this performance at the Dutch National Opera).
Géricault's painting is also referenced in reverse as a geometric
framing, while other unusual technological objects, neon poles and
circles (see Moses und Aron again) descend from above.

Whatever
it all means, it does nonetheless convey in a very abstract fashion the
experience of people and reality being pushed to its limits, to minds
becoming unhinged, of a world literally turning upside down. Visually
striking, very much unconventional and avant-garde in its theatrical
presentation with everything appearing immersed in the sea, when
combined with Henze's relentless flow, its the rises and falls into
violent outbursts meticulously controlled by Ingo Metzmacher, the
hypnotic siren-call of the chorus proves irresistible, drawing crew and
audience alike into its thrall. Lenneke Ruiten's extraordinary
performance singing Death makes the certain end feel just as
inescapable, which indeed, despite his rescue is also the fate of Bo Skovhus's determined Jean-Charles. It looks like Mamadon Ndiaye at least
makes it out of the water, but you are left in no uncertain terms with
as much an indication as it is possible to put on a stage of what must
be endured every day for the thousands who take to the seas to endure
similar horrors to the crew of the raft of the Medusa.